


endless voices, enclosed spaces

by spaghetti crest (FuzzyPurplePenguins)



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst, Anxiety, Canon Compliant, Depression, Eventual Fluff, Gen, Give Byleth All The Hugs, Golden Deer Family, Hurt/Comfort, I Gave Byleth My Problems, Post-Timeskip, There’s No Way Byleth is Fine After the Timeskip, Verdant Wind route, Wartime, mostly - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-08
Updated: 2020-08-15
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:00:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25774783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FuzzyPurplePenguins/pseuds/spaghetti%20crest
Summary: It’s been five years since the Empire declared war. Five years since Byleth fell asleep during that fateful battle.Except to her it’s only been the blink of an eye. And emotions have never been her strong suit.or: war is not an ideal time to handle anxiety and depression. Byleth does her best.
Relationships: Golden Deer Students & My Unit | Byleth, My Unit | Byleth & Claude von Riegan, My Unit | Byleth & Leonie Pinelli, My Unit | Byleth & Marianne von Edmund
Comments: 2
Kudos: 20





	1. panic

**Author's Note:**

> GMAP takes priority, but I’ve been super anxious lately, and this idea wouldn’t get out of my head. So here we are.
> 
> This is based on my own experiences of twenty-ish years of dealing with anxiety and depression. Obviously symptoms and experiences are not the same all across the board. Mental disorders are not cookie-cutter. I hope you enjoy this fic anyway.

_ Five years _ . As soon as that thought comes into her head Byleth pushes it away, tucking it into the part of her mind that’s for  _ later _ .

Her students don’t make it easy. As soon as the battle’s over (Raphael ends the head thief with a swift  _ slam _ into the stomach, blood spattering the ground as the thief goes down, hard) they swarm her, looking excited and awed and almost  _ unfamiliar _ .

“Professor!” Leonie’s face as she slides off her voice is blinding.  _ Too much too much too much _ something insides her screams, and Byleth feels herself flinch a little as the orange-haired girl - woman now - throws her arms around her.

“It really is you, professor!” Raphael booms as Byleth cautiously winds her arms around Leonie, gingerly hugging her. It feels odd; the only person Byleth remembers hugging is her dad.

That thought brings a deep spark of pain, lacing straight through her heart. Byleth has no time to waste on it because suddenly Annette is there, hair long and mouth beaming as she throws her arms around Byleth’s free side. “It’s so good to see you professor,” She says, and that’s when Byleth realizes that not just the original Golden Deer are there, but their ‘converts’ too.

Felix, brooding as he wipes blood off his blade and Sylvain, taller than ever, grinning at her as he rubs his wyvern’s head. Ferdinand, hair shining and glorious like a copper river down his back, leading his horse in a circle as he talks to Lorenz. Bernadetta hiding behind the folds of Dorothea’s dress as the songstress and Hilda eagerly catch up. The only ones missing are Flayn and the former Ashen Wolves.

Byleth feels a rush of something unknown slam into her, feels her chest seize up a little and her breath  _ whoosh _ out of her lungs. She can’t  _ breathe _ , She realizes, breathe stolen right out of her. She doesn’t know what to do.  _ Too much too much too- _

“Alright, alright, let Teach breathe,” Claude’s suddenly there, wading through the thick of their group. “Let’s not suffocate her just after we got her back,” He winks at her and Byleth feels warmth bubble up in her belly as Annette and Leonie reluctantly disconnect from her body.

It’s still a lot. But it’s better. Maybe.  _ Later _ , She tells herself again. She can breathe now. That’s enough for this moment, Byleth thinks.

They all scatter after another round of questions are thrown at her about her whereabouts ; riders to put their mounts in the stables, everyone else to put their belongings in their old dorm rooms. Her Deer have seemed to, unspoken, agree to spend the night at the monastery. As they’re all splitting up, Claude calls for a meeting in two hours’ time in the cardinal meeting room, saluting Byleth and giving her another cheeky wink.

Some things never change, Byleth thinks, even as she pulls away from her students, hand gripping tight on the Sword of the Creator’s handle.

Her room is the same as she left it.  _ Five years _ . She can’t push the thought away anymore and slams the door shut as her breath stutters in her chest. The Sword clatters to the ground and Byleth just barely manages to twist the old lock on the door before her knees give out.

She hits the floor hard, but barely notices it. Byleth feels like an absolute mess on the inside.  _ Panic _ , She finds herself thinking. She’s seen it in enemies enough in her lifetime to recognize the frigid cold lance that pierces through her, over and over, mixing in with other emotions she cannot name, dancing in her stomach until she feels like she’s about to pass out.

The wood floor is cold against her cheek when Byleth slips from her sitting position to lying across the floor, back pressed to the door. The clock hung above the bulletin board is old, broken, and gives her no clue to the passage of time. As she stares at yellowing scraps still pinned to corkboard Byleth realizes that she doesn’t want to go to Claude’s meeting.

She already knows what he’s going to propose. She’d seen it in those warm green eyes when they had reunited, just the two of them, atop the goddess tower.

For most her life all she’s ever known is war and battle, but Byleth finds herself wanting to say no.

But she can’t do that. She  _ knows _ she can’t do that. Her heart  _ tugs _ and Byleth covers her face with an arm, pressing further back against the door.

Her students need her. The whole  _ country _ needs her. Jeralt didn’t raise her to run away at the first sight of trouble. At that thought Byleth inhales and exhales. It’s shaky. She does it again and again, remembering flashes of one of the older mercenaries - Viktor - teaching breathing exercises to green recruits. It’s another long passage of time, but eventually Byleth sits up off the floor, something steady in her.  _ For now _ , The pessimistic part of her brain says, cruelly.

Byleth ignores it, gets off the floor, and goes to see if she can salvage any of the clothes hanging in her closet from five years ago.

Leonie’s outside her door when Byleth wrenches it open, fist poised to knock. “Professor!” She’s beaming at her and Byleth can hardly take her in. Her mind keep super-imposing 19-year-old Leonie over this new, grown up woman. It makes her head  _ ache _ . “Good timing! Ready to go to the meeting?”

_ No _ , Byleth thinks, incredibly tired. Instead, she just nods, shutting her door behind her and curling her fingers tight around the Sword of the Creator, the way it pulses in her grasp comfortingly familiar.

“Let’s go,” She says.

Leonie leads the way to the cardinal’s room with the smile still present on her face, talking excitedly about the past five years.

Byleth stays quiet through the whole journey, and pretends that that icy cold piercing is just her imagination. It’s all she can do.


	2. ghosts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The former Golden Deer class have a meeting, and Byleth goes and hides in the greenhouse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome back. This chapter fought with me (I had A Time figuring out tense for various parts of this chapter, and the characters all kept arguing and going on and on), but here it is.
> 
> Marianne is Precious The End. I’m a Big Gay for her.
> 
> Once again reminder that Byleth’s experiences are based on my own! I Hate Talking To People. Especially after not seeing them for a long time. I literally Can’t Function, thanks anxiety!!!!
> 
> Enjoy.

“It’s good to see you again, friend.”

The Ashen Wolves stand in front of her, that same strange amalgamation of  _ uneeriely new _ and  _ so familiar it hurts _ as everything else she’s encountered since she woke up roughly a day ago. They’re all a little taller, hair all a little longer, and it’s so good to see them again but it also  _ hurts _ .

Byleth hadn’t been surprised, not really, when Claude had walked into the meeting with Yuri by his side. Balthus had also been present, teasing a furious-looking Lysithea alongside Hilda, while Constance had joined Ferdinand and Lorenz’s discussion. Hapi had been sat at the long meeting table already, head resting on her arms.

Byleth had chosen the seat closest to the door and sat down as soon as she walked in, doing her best to keep herself from curling her fingers around the arms of the chair. Leonie had sat next to her when Byleth had simply nodded in response to the hunter asking if she could sit with her, eyes drinking her in like she was afraid Byleth was going to disappear if she blinked.

Byleth was almost afraid of that too.

The former professor had sat in her chair, quiet, as her former students bickered back and forth about starting an army and fighting against the Empire. Lorenz had been the biggest voice of dissent, while Dorothea had surprised almost everyone in the room by glaring him down and telling him to shut up because this  _ wasn’t about his house _ . The former Black Eagles member had been vehement in her words. “I’m from the Empire, and I understand what Edie is doing, but she’s going about it  _ wrong _ , and  _ everyone _ is suffering for it.”

“Will you fight with us, Teach?” Claude asked her the dreaded words five minutes before the meeting had broken up. The whole room had gone dead silent, and Byleth had felt every one of her students’ eyes as if they were a dagger pierced in her flesh. It was unnerving, having them all look at her. She had always commanded their respect  _ before _ , she why did it hurt  _ now _ ?

She said nothing, drummed her fingers on her thigh out-of sight beneath the table, and nodded shortly.

Claude’s gaze had been searching, but he had smiled at her unspoken agreement. After that, her students had all agreed to rise up against the Empire, and Claude had proposed snatching The Great Bridge of Myrddin as their first target. With that decided, and the meeting done, Byleth had sought to make her escape.

Only for Yuri to step in and block off her exit.

_ Get out _ , Her mind screams, but Byleth tucks her back against a wall and locks gazes with the leader of the Wolves, determined not to show weakness in front of one of her most shrewd students.

“Hello, Yuri,” She says. Her voice is rough from disuse and Byleth notes the way Yuri’s eyes flash at the sound of her voice. “It’s good to see you. All of you.”

“Chatterbox…” Hapi gazes at her, face warring between relief and worry. “You had us all half-convinced you were gone  _ forever _ .”

Byleth feels something inside her  _ flinch _ again at the reminder. Five years had gone by in the blink of an eye and  _ nothing is the same _ . She loves her students but they  _ keep talking about it _ like she’s likely to forget.

At this rate, She thinks, she’s likely to go insane. The frigid cold lancing of  _ panic _ surges up again, and Byleth pushes off the wall, slides between Balthus and Constance, and flees the meeting room.

“Let her go, for now,” She hears Yuri say behind her, and Byleth fights the urge to scoff and cry at the same time.

* * *

_ Stupid emotions _ , She thinks. She’s in the greenhouse, tucked behind a row of towering flowers, head resting against the cool glass of a window that faces over the fishing pond. It’s dark in here, with no greenhouse keeper to disturb here, as silent as the rest of the empty monastery. If she thinks about it too hard Byleth can picture ghosts of five years past filling the monastery with life, but that just makes everything hurt  _ more _ .

She scowls. Twenty years with Sothis suppressing her emotions. She  _ misses it _ . This new state of being is  _ impossible _ . Byleth had barely managed to keep herself together on the field wiping out those bandits…

Her father had always joked that punching things was her stress relief. Maybe that was why the battlefield was the place she could get her shit together.

_ Or maybe _ , Byleth muses, morose.  _ It’s because a battlefield’s the one thing that’s always the same _ .

That’s war for you.

“...Professor?”

Lost in her thoughts, Byleth had failed to realize Marianne was approaching. Staring up at her now, drinking in the young woman her most shy student has become, Byleth feels an odd sort of relief that, of her students, Marianne is the one to have found her.

“Can I…” The soft-spoken young woman casts her face down, staring at the cobblestone beneath them. “Can I sit with you, professor?”

“...I think I’d like that,” Byleth is shocked to realize she  _ means it _ .

Gathering her skirts in her hand, the faith user sits down awkwardly next to her, leaning back against the wood behind them.

“It’s hard,” Marianne says so quietly Byleth almost misses it. “Being back. I...think fondly of this place, but I also hate it sometimes.” A pause. “I could say that about a lot of things in life, I think.”

Byleth reaches out without meaning to, grabbing a pale hand in one of her own. Marianne starts, but lays her free hand over Byleth’s and squeezes.

“It’s alright if it’s too much, professor,” She says into the still air. “We can stay here until it’s not. For both of us.”

“...thank you, Marianne.”

Marianne’s smiles have always been scarce, but brilliant. This one, Byleth thinks, is the most beautiful one yet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> byleth clutching desperately to marianne’s hand as an anchor: i must protect this sweet summer child from all harm

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and kudos are much loved and appreciated. 💖


End file.
